The booklet "Team Tokelau's engagement with the 3rd UN-SIDS conference" is available from this website. It combines stories mounted on this site during the week before and during SIDS with additional reports and photos of key events.

Publication-quality photos of the Tokelau events surrounding SIDS, are in our Photo Gallery

Introduction

The Third International Conference on Small Island Developing States (SIDS) in Samoa had the rider “The sustainable development of SIDS through genuine and durable partnerships”. An event, so close to home – both physically and strategically – promised to be of enormous relevance to Tokelau: and so it was.

Team Tokelau was there in force: the Ulu, the Minister of Education, several departmental Directors, the General Manager and staff from the Office of the Council for the Ongoing Government of Tokelau in Apia participated.

The objectives of our SIDS Engagement were to:
1. Showcase Tokelau’s culture as part of the Pacific
Community;
2. Illustrate Tokelau’s plight concerning impacts of Climate
Change;
3. Highlight Tokelau’s success stories concerning
Renewable Energy;
4. Be heard (as part of the Pacific family) at this global event
and in various arenas;
5. Establish durable partnerships for the nation’s future
sustainable development.

The highlight in the week leading up to SIDS was the launch of the video and song “My Tokelau”. It struck a chord with many, and put a human face to life on our atolls. The launch also made delegates familiar with the special SIDS Engagement room in our Apia office. A number of important international events were able to be staged there.

During the conference itself, the Ulu’s contribution to the General Debate on the world stage made United Nations delegates sit up and listen. The speech literally put Tokelau on the world map, even if we are not an independent SIDS. New Zealand’s agreement to use its timeslot officially allocated by the UN, is gratefully acknowledged.

The conference brought together numerous relevant topics and delegates from various countries, in many parallel sessions. That meant that choices had to be made, by those lucky enough to be there. For them, and those absent, daily updates on the website tokelau.org.nz reported on our engagement during the hyper-active fortnight.

This booklet collates these news stories and will further serve to communicate the key messages from this once-in-10-years conference, both nationally and globally. It testifies to the success of the exercise of Team Tokelau’s engagement with SIDS in August/September 2014.

Jovilisi V Suveinakama
General Manager, Apia (National Public Service)
Office of the Council for the Ongoing Government of Tokelau
Tokelau-Apia Liaison Office, PO Box 3298, Apia, Samoa

Pictured: Joe Suveinakama

Sources: Most of the material for this booklet was written and compiled by Dr Jaap (“iapi”) Jasperse who took on a temporary role as Communications Adviser during SIDS. He is Statistics Adviser on secondment from Statistics New Zealand, where he previously worked in the Publishing unit.
Staff from the Tokelau-Apia Liaison Office who attended the main and side events contributed text and photos. Such stories were mounted on the home page of the website tokelau.org.nz within a day of any event occurring. Key headlines were also put on Facebook and Twitter, to keep the world – and especially Tokelau – informed of the contribution Team Tokelau made to the historic SIDS conference in Samoa. This booklet serves as a permanent record of our SIDS engagement through text and photos.
Publication-quality jpg files of all photos can be downloaded from the Photo Gallery of this website – copyright-free, provided the source is mentioned.
For more information please contact tevakai@tokelau.org.nz